Time Is Carving You, Grasshopper
by Marsh of Sleep
Summary: Not having a steady job makes her grumpy. The aircon set to two degrees short of Satan's armpit makes her grumpy. And Soul Evans is somewhere on a frosty airplane eating complimentary biscotti cookies or whatever those things are, because he's The Last Deathscythe and he gets to meet presidents and whoever. (written with love for the 2018 soulxmaka fanzine)
1. check the mental fridge

Pairings: soma, deathstar, steinmarie, some implied oxharv because you can't stop me  
Tags: growing up, manga canonverse, tbh more of a gen fic than anything  
Rating: T  
Warnings: language, canon-typical violence

* * *

The head of the payroll department gives her an apathetic kind of shrug. He says, "I don't have anything else to say, Miss Albarn. There just aren't enough missions to go around."

Which is an obvious-enough statement, seeing as the head of payroll is Death City's former poster child, Kilik Rung. "Geeze, don't call me that, it's awkward," Maka says, slumping into the generic, padded office chair on the other side of the desk.

"Thank god," Kilik replies, taking off his glasses and tossing them a little recklessly on his mousepad. "I don't know, man. Most of the shit we get are all rated point-five star or lower, so missions are basically reserved for the students. They need the practice."

"So the overqualified meisters need to get day jobs, is what you're saying."

"I mean, if we wanna be able to pay our electric bills, yeah."

Half the reason she came here in the first place was to greedily absorb Shibusen's frosty air conditioning; she and Soul had set the thermostat at home to Barely Tolerable levels to offset the exorbitant bill they got last month. She's not looking forward to going home with this pathetic paycheck. "Don't suppose your department is hiring more war heroes?"

Wearing a sympathetic grimace, he says, "Not all heroes wear trenchcoats, Maks." Kilik throws his arms behind his head and cracks stiff shoulders contained in a too-restrictive dress shirt. "Sometimes they wear Deathbucks aprons."

She groans. "Fine." She's a trained warrior with a spine of steel, so she straightens her back with it and declares, "How hard can being a civilian be, anyway? I'll be a three-star in no time."

Kilik opens his mouth to say something, but seems to change his mind on the contents after a wonderfully air-conditioned silence. "Sure. Close enough. By the way, you'll have to file your own taxes now."

"My... my what?"

* * *

It's not like it's his first time working for Shibusen without Maka coming with him, but the experience is still somewhat discordant in the same way knowing nothing is in the fridge but being unable to keep from checking it, as if the thing he needs will suddenly appear like a Schrödinger's supper. Which is what he does on the drive to the airport, waiting through security, bouncing his leg the entire five-hour flight to Virginia, and throughout the bulk of Kid's lecture at the Joint Forces College: he waits and absently checks the mental fridge for Maka, remembers the fridge is empty, and then forgets and checks again roughly three minutes later.

As the auditorium empties and Death gathers his notecards to tuck them securely in his still-very-Hot-Topic blazer, Soul meanders to one side of the podium, itching to escape his dress shoes. "I don't get why I even had to show up for this," he says, keenly aware of how he's likely the youngest person in the building.

"It would be like a human president traveling without bodyguards," says Kid, briefly summoning a weird, death-god plume of flame in his hands because it's easier than carrying around a bottle of hand sanitizer in his jacket.

Soul sighs evenly through his nose and checks the mental fridge the second he forgets not to check it. Shoves his hands in his pockets and tries not to yell anything Black*Star would consider yelling on a stage in a very echo-friendly auditorium. "But like, you're a god - you're the last person who needs bodyguards," he says.

"That... may be mostly true." Death makes a gesture to Patti, who stands off-stage and casually salutes in response before trotting off to retrieve the rental car. "But normal people typically do not have much experience with shinigami. Which I'm content with, as it is a sign they are living relatively peaceful lives. Either way, I find it is important to keep up certain appearances."

"It seems like this gig is nothing but keeping appearances," says Soul.

Kid nods. With a wry little smile, he replies, "And you still have a lot more training to do, before Spirit retires."

Soul tilts his head up to the hot stage lights and whines. He's not cut out for this.

* * *

Apart from the outstanding task regarding Crona and Ragnarok gift wrapped in black blood high overhead, in the years following the battle on the moon, the to-do list of Shibusen has become a bit sparse. The world seems to be, for the lack of a better term, at 'peace.' Pre-kishin cases still crop up now and then, which Spartoi are far too seasoned to take on in lieu of younger meisters and weapons, and so the saviors of the world have since been twiddling their thumbs, not knowing what to do with themselves.

All except a few lucky bastards, that is, such as Kim Diehl, who now acts as a liaison between Death City and the realm of witches. She and Jacqueline often whisk off to diplomatic meetings and fancy-pants banquets, eating great food and being actually useful to the world-

The washing machine sings the song of its people, jolting Maka out of her jealousy to inform her for fifteen-seconds-too-long that the clothes are finished. She noisily slides off her perch on the dryer - because that's all it's good for now, being a sweaty seat - and shoves the laundry hamper on the floor closer to the washing machine with a foot. Sets herself to the task of yanking the damp, somewhat uncomfortably warm mass of clothes into the basket, deadlifts this over her head because she needs to feel like she's defeating something, and high-steps to the balcony to hang up the clothes despite having a perfectly functioning dryer, because, again, the electric bill.

Anyway, fancy-pants banquets are something her partner has also been attending, as of late, and she's reminded of this fact by finding one of his dress socks but not the other one despite a frustrating hunt through the basket. Maka eventually clips it up on the line to dry with all the other singles. This is the most exciting case she's had in the past three months: Socks Missing In Action. But seeing as she is not a three-star laundry meister, she's been stumped for weeks.

Despite the rapidly piling cold cases, Soul seems to have an unnaturally large collection of business attire, socks included, though he insists all well-dressed persons should at least have two dozen pairs and _she's_ the weird one for thinking otherwise.

Maka may not know what the closets of normal people actually contain other than, perhaps, a lack of decent trench coats, but she has a suspicion they are not as ridiculous as the wardrobes of former rich-boys.

The Death City sun is excessive and patronizing this time of year, shining down with ruthless superiority as the asphalt bubbles and boils in the streets below. Maka sweats and touches damp clothes with sweaty hands and it all feels like sweat, hanging sweat up to sweat in the air so she can fold the sweat later and put them into sweaty dresser drawers. Black*Star has always threatened to punch the sun in the face, and it'd sure be nice if he'd actually get off his levitating ass to do it.

Not having a steady job makes her grumpy. The aircon set to two degrees short of Satan's armpit makes her grumpy. And Soul Evans is somewhere on a frosty airplane eating complimentary biscotti cookies or whatever those things are, because he's The Last Deathscythe and he gets to meet presidents and whoever. Even though she's the one who helped him become a deathscythe. Even though they had defeated Arachne, aka: the Heretic Witch, aka: Like A Nine Hundred Or Something Year Old Disaster, and Maka and Soul had kicked her bulbous ass _together_ , just like everything else.

For a sweat-ridden five seconds, Maka considers drop-kicking the remainder of the laundry off the balcony so it would stick to the melting tar like some kind of rebellious, domestic graffiti. She really needs to get a job, even if only for the pleasure of using the damned dryer, if not for the sake of her sanity.

Kilik had suggested talking to the Death formerly known as Kid to see where she could best apply her particular "skill set" in her job hunt, but Death is also on the aforementioned air-conditioned plane with her weapon, probably nestled comfortably in those round first-class pods and being served warm, damp towels which are warm and damp on purpose, because the concept of sweat somehow turns in on itself and becomes some kind of luxury when you're an important adult and have a steady job.

The fact that Kid fills the role of Soul's meister for such tasks makes her very, _very_ grumpy.

Being a meister is the one thing she's good at, and yet she's here, writing imaginary case files on missing dress socks. She tries to not let her frustration become resentment, because none of this is an actual problem, is it? Compared to the things they had all fought through and survived, how petty would she have to be to complain about the peace they had created?

So she sucks it in and stuffs it all down, down, into the cold case mysteries of her heart; she has some normal-job hunting to do.


	2. el oh el

If there's not a war, there isn't exactly a need for a weapon like him. Kid keeping him around is like bringing a steak knife to a froyo bar - a couple of hired bodyguards would be more than enough.

But being The Last Deathscythe gives him a free pass to stay employed, no matter how overpowered he is for the job, and that means being able to keep the lights on at home. He knows Kid is grooming him to take over as Death Scythe in Spirit's place, and keeps telling him that the real training will come, once he gets all the formalities and high-profile social events under his belt.

Which is what a lot of it feels like: below-the-belt groveling and ass-kissing for people who have no clue what Shibusen really is. But, much like his own existence, if there's not a war, there's little need for Shibusen, either. Kid is very thorough in keeping up with other world powers and staying in their good graces, because the moment someone thinks what Death does is unnecessary or out of line, it won't be long before the whole system is targeted, defunded, and wiped off the earth, even if Kid's role as a shinigami is as integral to humanity as clouds are to rain.

It's frustrating. To top it off, having a real-world application for the ballroom dancing lessons Mom and Dad had him take as a kid makes it that much worse. He was never great at it, which gets under his skin because he can pick up an instrument and figure it out after a little practice, yet dancing had never _clicked_ like that. But he can admit to himself that what really bothers him about it is that he's only felt comfortable dancing with Maka, in his soul, in a room which no longer exists. It had faded away, like the war, like the path he'd chosen.

The choices he has to make now are a lot simpler. Like choosing not to roll his eyes at important ambassadors, or choosing not to fly Maka out to Vegas on his next trip so they can hang out for more than half an hour because he's lonely. Maybe this is what adulthood is, to choose the sensible options. He can appreciate that life is not as nerve-wracking as needing to make split-second, life-or-death decisions had been, so he wonders why he feels more stressed out now than he ever had being Maka's weapon.

Maybe with real, physical training, he can work out enough of his frustrations to put up with the social aspects of the job. At least, this is what he thinks, until Spirit Albarn waves him down before Soul's even made it out of the Death Room after the end of a long video-slash-mirror conference.

Maka's old man hasn't been _hostile_ since the onset of peacetime, but Soul's not about to claim he and the present Death Scythe are buddy-buddy. Apart from weapon manifestations, the only common ground he and Spirit share is the fact they would both drop literally anything if Maka asked. In short: they're voluntary idiots.

Spirit says, "I hear you're eager for training," leaning against the wall in the usual suit, and he would almost look cool if he didn't have such a blatantly smug look on his face.

However, he's not wrong, and that alone is irritating enough to sneer. "God. Are you my instructor?"

"Who else would do it?"

Preferably any other teacher on earth. Soul sighs. "Honestly, I was hoping for like, Miss Nygus."

The image of suspicion over another's mental capacity, Spirit looks at him out the corner of his eye and pushes off the wall, waving for Soul to follow. "Why? She's never been Death Scythe. If you're taking my place, obviously it should be me."

"Yeah, okay," Soul concedes, hating that he'd been averse to something so obvious that he'd been living in some kind of fantasy to avoid the thought of being Spirit Albarn's apprentice. Thinking back on it, Kid's weird, rare smile when he'd talked about training a few weeks ago now makes sense, and Soul's annoyance with both this situation and himself is hitting the redline. Lame. "W-wait," he says, realizing he'd just trailed after the man unconsciously, and stops in the middle of the hallway. "We're doing it now? But I-"

A dozen deadly blades come within millimeters of his face before Soul can blink, sprouted out of Death Scythe's back. He looks over his shoulder, eternally unimpressed, and Soul can grudgingly admit he might look ten percent cool for a split second. "D'you think being a shinigami's weapon gives you the privilege of free time? El-oh-el."

Soul grimaces. "You are such a dad, seriously."

"Thank you!"

* * *

To be perfectly honest, she hadn't wanted to work at Death e Cheese anyway. But she deserves at least some form of recognition for taking down that thief; no one appreciates what kind of physique it takes to sprint and tackle a guy into a ball pit while wearing a full mascot suit. She understands that the stolen goods had merely been some cheap toys and a pizza, but it'd been the principle of the thing. Who in their right mind stands around while a crime is being committed?

But since the perpetrator had not been any form of kishin, she has to spend more time at the police station than she'd spent being employed. That kind of justice is just called 'assault,' evidently.

Thankfully, Ox is on the police force these days, and he's letting her go with only a warning. But not before delivering a very frustrated lecture which likely had been well-practiced on his weapon, Harvar, who is only allowed to work at the library now.

"I know it doesn't make sense," Officer Ford says, rubbing deep circles into his temples, "but you can't just take out anyone who breaks the rules. You have to be a _normal person_ , now."

Maka finishes off her burnt police station coffee and argues, "There wasn't a class on this, okay? I was born and bred as a meister, I dunno what normal means."

"For starters, it does **not** mean beating the shit out of a man while dressed as a five-foot-nothing cuddly shinigami with mouse ears in front of two dozen terrified children. Does your weapon know you're here?"

Is she so problematic she needs a Real Adult to be her guardian? Sinking an inch in her chair, she avoids the question and instead asks, "Do you think I can work at the library, too?"

His eyes nearly triple in size as he waves an emphatic hand, like trying to wipe the knowledge of her off the slate of his existence. "NO. I don't care if bribery is illegal, I will pay anyone to ensure you and Harv are _not employed in the same building_. I think we can both agree the books deserve better than that."

"Oh come on," she says, resisting the desire to throw her empty paper cup in his face. "We're not... _that_ bad." Though after saying it aloud, it sounds doubtful even to her. Harvar has a track record of stabbing anyone indiscriminately if he thinks it's the right thing to do; Maka took out a guy in the middle of Death e Cheese in the name of justice.

Ox might have a valid point and it is the worst truth she's ever had to face. Still, she says, "You're exaggerating."

"Albarn, three people literally phoned in to report you instead of the guy you 'apprehended.'" Standing up from the table as if being too near to her might infect him with the Madness of Violence, he opens the door to the interrogation room. "My weapon is chill when he's not provoked - you don't know the _meaning_ of chill. In fact, I think you're almost as much a threat to the public as Black*Star."

Maka crushes the paper cup and wishes it were his stupidly round head. " _You take that back_ -"

"I won't and I never will." Ox waves her over to the door, eager to kick her out of his place of employment. "Now _listen_ : It's come to my attention that Deathgreens is hiring. Do you **think** you could possibly handle operating a cash register without tackling any potential criminals?"

"I..." She stops short, flummoxed at this unexpected, grumpy offer of assistance. "I don't know how to use a register," she blurts. Ox looks like he's a step away from imploding just so he won't have to deal with her anymore. "But! I can learn! I'm just as good at learning as you are!"

Ford gives her a look that has the very exact kind of condescending sympathy that would make anyone who received it consider committing immediate murder. "We'll agree to disagree and move on. I'll put in a word for you, but I swear on all sane academia if you screw this up I will never acknowledge we were in the same graduating class ever again."

* * *

In the years he's spent living with her, Soul has concluded Maka Albarn is a fairly put-together person, barring the temper and occasional bouts of self-imposed, antisocial fungus behavior. Even when handling a full course load in school, back to back missions, and a literal war on the moon, she always had the spare energy to bitch him out for leaving his clothes on the bathroom floor. The dishes are put away the microsecond they become dry, and no one speaks about what happens when the recycling isn't properly sorted.

Honestly, it's not even that big of a deal anymore. By a combination of survival instincts and genuinely wanting to take at least some of the load off his meister's shoulders, Soul has come to appreciate the whole living-without-hired-housecleaners gig.

Everything has its place in the Evans-Albarn household, so when he comes home from Death City International at a quarter to noon, trudges through the front door, and finds something that is vaguely reminiscent of a murder scene with a lot of his dress socks and a clothesline in the middle of the living room, he doesn't know what to think apart from, well, _murder_. Death (the noun) is the only logical reason Soul can think of for the apartment to be in disarray, given thirty-three percent of its occupants rule over its well-organized lands with an iron fist the exact shape, weight, and page number of The Complete Demon Weapon Physiology, seventh edition.

Upon further investigation, he discovers two entire pieces of tableware in the sink: a spoon, inside a real, actual mug with real, actual coffee still in the bottom. Maka must be dead.

No, wait. He is not a native death child - he _refuses_ to accept that every minor curiosity could be explained away by something just kicking the damn bucket. "Maka?" he calls, breaking into a sweat. He sets his duffel bag down on the kitchen counter and finally gets over his initial shock long enough to feel the little difference between the present indoor and outdoor temperatures with appropriate levels of disgust. Maybe Maka really _is_ dead.

"When we talked about cutting back on the electric bill, I meant, like, bumping it up a couple degrees, not up Hell's asshole," he says, voice raised when he doesn't find her on the balcony or in her bedroom. Adrenaline makes quick work of his jet lag and evicts his exhaustion. Upon seeing the unmade state of her bed, he picks up the pace. "Damn it, Maka, did you actually die?" Soul breezes past the dark bathroom with a cursory glance inside, but then stops short and backtracks to do a double-take for the blob on the floor.

"Yes," she says, belly-down on the tile. He flips on the light and finds her gnawing on one of those neon-colored, freeze-it-yourself pops, dressed in a sports bra and her Spartoi-edition workout shorts.

Soul has at least twelve things he wants to say, but doesn't know how to express any of them. "Don't joke like that," he says with a disgruntled sigh, leaning on the bathroom door frame.

Blinking up at him with some consideration, she amends with, "Sorry, uh. I did not die. I got fired again."

Soul now has at least thirteen things he wants to say. "Huh?"

"I didn't even last three hours," she says with a blue-raspberry mouth and crunching the popsicle through its plastic sleeve like she's trying to make all popsicle-kind extinct in one go. "I'm reflecting on my actions."

He hadn't known she'd gotten another job. "What, with like a self-disciplinary sauna?"

She doesn't say anything, only chewing in silence, but Soul sees the dullness in her downcast eyes, her own disappointment punishing her well enough on its own. He doesn't know what to do here, or what kind of solution is needed.

"I stole Kid's airplane cookies for you," he says, walking in the bathroom and groaning as he leans over to offer a hand. "C'mon, let's go turn on the air and you can tell me what, uh, what's up with the socks."


	3. inadequacy

So far, the things Maka has learned about adult life are as follows:

1: Do not apprehend criminals in front of witnesses.

Addendum the first: Do not apprehend criminals in front of witnesses while wearing a mascot suit that does not belong to you, or you will be charged for its dry cleaning fee.

Addendum the second: And you no longer get free dry cleaning like when you were a full time meister.

2: Do not roundhouse kick cash registers when they are being stupid. Normal People are expected to call the computer police.

Addendum: """Tech support.""" Sounds fake.

And so, she's back on the job hunt again. In fact, she's itching to go through the help wanted ads, but it's a rare day off for Soul and they see so little of each other lately that she doesn't want to waste it looking at her laptop.

That, and she has a feeling he hasn't been eating or sleeping well. He looks worn out all the time, and she hears him meander into the living room late at night when he should be dead asleep. She doesn't need to be a 'normal person' to know when her weapon is stressed out.

So she's cooking lunch for him. When he doesn't come sliding into the kitchen at the very smell of mac and cheese, it's only further confirmation. After a loud call of, "FOOD TIME," and he still doesn't show his face, Maka peeks into the living room sees Soul doing a fairly impressive imitation of a Dali-style melted watch, just oozing across his preferred chair and staring blankly at the ceiling.

He's dead. She makes her way behind the chair and pokes his head through his wilted mess of hair, and his eyes slowly pry open. "It's food time," she says.

"Oh." His chest heaves with a deep sigh, which is cut short by a small wince. "Urhg. Getting old sucks."

Maka crosses her arms. "Soul, you're twenty-one. Kid's gonna outlive us by like a thousand years, have some perspective."

He makes a raspy scoff of a noise. "Eff perspective, I can't get up."

"What?"

"Everything hurts," he whines. "Feed me."

She huffs, but she's starting to think he's a little serious. She sneaks a quick peek of his wavelength and finds it humming with a tightrope-strain, taut and monotonous. The thing that she's surprised to realize, however, is that it's not far off from how she's felt the past few months while trying to be useful and failing with straight F's. She'd been repressing it, taking a walk-it-off, tough-it-out stance on the matter, but it becomes unacceptable when it's Soul having to bear that crushing overwhelm.

She carefully settles her hand on his head. Hoping to ease that metallic note of his wavelength, she presses her fingertips gently against his scalp. He melts a little more into the chair, but maybe in a different way.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs.

When he scrunches his eyebrows, she feels it under her hand. "What for? You burn dinner?"

"No, I just... You're working really hard." And she isn't. She doesn't have a job to make her so sore and weary she can't get out of a chair, so isn't her stress meaningless compared to his? The way he tilts his head back a few inches to press more firmly into her hand makes her heart twist sideways. "Is there something I can do?"

Is there _anything_ she can do?

Maka feels the cautious brush of his soul - something he does even though she suspects he doesn't do so with conscious purpose - because he must have noticed she's feeling off-center. He rolls his head to one side and looks up towards her to say, "Don't worry 'bout it. It's been months since our last mission, and like, years since I've had to really _try_. I'm rusty and sore, is all." He raises an arm, reaching up for her hand, though he winces the whole way. His hand lands on top of hers, and he presses his fingertips into the back of it, mimicking her. "S'not like I'm the only one. I know you're trying hard too."

She objectively appreciates the validation, but the fact that he has to put a voice to it makes it worse, for some reason. Maka takes a mental step away from his wavelength, ashamed that she's enough of a mess to warrant being noticed. His hand melts away, his arm ragdolling back down to the chair. Soul closes his eyes again. "That feels nice," he adds.

She places her hands on his shoulders instead, alarmed to find how close to steel he feels even though he's in his human body. Somewhat unthinkingly, she digs in her thumbs and draws a hiss out of him, but he doesn't tell her to stop.

All she can think is that he's doing the work of both a weapon _and_ a meister, while she kicks cash registers and gets angry at missing socks; if she could just be normal and do her part, maybe he wouldn't have to push himself this much to pick up her slack.

Maka rubs her weapon's shoulders for a whole three minutes before he's sleeping so soundly he doesn't even hear Blair come home, mac and cheese be damned.

* * *

Another business trip. More social calls. Last-second class demos. And then there's the training.

Soul doesn't think he's _that_ out of shape, and has been hoping his body would adapt to all the sparring with Spirit at some point, but just when he starts feeling like he can keep up with the old man's pace, the bastard turns it up to eleven.

His shoulder hadn't been dislocated today, at least. Since having eaten Arachne's soul, he knows he has the same capabilities as Spirit in terms of raw weapon power, but the difference in control between the two of them is as obvious as the desert is dry. He now understands why Maka's dad had been chosen as the late Shinigami's Death Scythe, and Soul's so worn out from trying to fill his shoes that he can't spare a moment to analyze the bizarre gap between Spirit's superior abilities and disappointing personality.

He catches himself mentally drifting off into space in the locker room with only his slacks back on. Considers the idea of taking the bus home and just leaving the motorcycle here, because that's like seven minutes of not having to think he could have on the ride home. He aches so much that it's been hard to sleep and his brain is utterly fried.

All he wants right now is to be instantly home so he can collapse on the sofa, the chair, the floor - anything would do as long as he could feel Maka somewhere nearby.

Though that reminds him of yet another thing that wears him out. She's obviously struggling with the whole job situation, and her worry over _his_ job is such an apartment-filling ghost that it's just another note of stress on top of everything else. The only time he and Maka can spend together is the brief moment he's home and she's still awake, which more often than not isn't a stretch of time long enough to even exchange pleasantries.

That being said, Maka's been devoting some of her time to make things easier on him, which he appreciates - especially if it seems to help with her stir-craziness - but for all her help, he's halfway convinced there's a distance growing between them. He can't decide if it's a real thing or if he's just feeling homesick because he's pathetically needy and away so much, but he's tired and it royally blows either way.

He misses her. He misses the way it used to be, even though living had been considerably harder when witches were enemies across the board, when Asura broke loose, when the Blood sang tempting and awful in his heart.

But as much as he fondly remembers protecting one another from the many hundreds of things that could kill them, Soul Evans also wants to live with his meister without some constant threat hanging over them; to stay together as _people_. If he can just survive all this training, maybe being Kid's weapon will pan out. And after that, maybe he'll talk to Maka about things that are allowed to be talked about when one is an 'adult' and not a weapon for war.

Finally standing up from the bench, Soul cringes into the rest of his outfit, stuffing his training clothes into a battered duffel he's had what feels like forever. He supposes he should get rid of it and replace it with something mature, but this old-ass duffel bag was Maka's first gift to him as official partners. It's just one of many other facets of the past he keeps clinging to, and he wonders if this vague adulthood would feel more real if he could let go of them.

He doesn't like it. The thought makes him more lonely. He wants to go home, missing Maka so much he's imagining that crackling murmur of her soul already.

Or... he isn't imagining it at all. Soul walks out the locker room and it's the real deal, leaning against the wall opposite the door and looking at what he assumes are help wanted ads on her phone again. There's something so familiar in her posture that it takes the edge off the strain he feels in every inch of his body.

Maka looks up before he's said anything, her eyes darting across all of him in an instant. "What happened to you?"

He takes a glance down at himself: his slacks are more wrinkled than he'd like, but otherwise nothing unusual to report - shoulder's still in the socket, after all. "Huh?" he asks, though she's already three long-legged strides closer, closing the distance between them and taking his left forearm in her little hand. When she twists his wrist to get a better look at the smattering of yellows and greens there, he straight-up yelps - there's no way to cover that noise up.

Her hold eases, eyes wide, but it doesn't stop her from reaching towards other places, namely the side of his mouth, which hurts, and also his right jaw, which has scabbed over already but still sucks.

"Oh," he says. "Just training again."

Maka heaves a quick, frustrated sigh, clearly holding her tongue. It's unlike her, and he almost wishes she'd lecture him or something, just to feel a little bit normal. She says, "Kid texted and said you had a long day, but didn't elaborate, so I took the bus." Her expression becomes a few half-steps more sour. "He's getting as cryptic as his dad used to be," she mutters.

 _Kid?_ Death's been so focused on the budget lately, it's surprising to hear he'd been aware of Soul's training with Spirit today at all. Maka's trying to push his hair away from the cut on his jaw when he says, "Um, sorry, I dunno what he's talkin' about, nothing crazy happened. You didn't have to come get me."

Her hand pauses, and the way that murmur of her soul pulls out of earshot is like a frosty breeze moving through a silent house, leaving him chill as it disappears.

He's not imagining it after all. Soul makes a grab for her hand before he truly thinks about it, giving her fingers a faint squeeze even though it hurts his wrist like hell. "But I'm glad you came," he insists, allowing himself to demonstrate just a bit more of his exhaustion. If worrying about him gets her to stay, he'd rather have that over this near-terrifying silence. "Are you up for driving us home?"

This is the part where he expects her to say something with a skeptical tilt to her brow, for her to be surprised that he'd even let her drive the motorcycle at all. But Maka looks at their connected hands. She doesn't express any skepticism. She doesn't express anything. The space between them is vast when she nods and says, "I can."

Soul wishes more than anything that he could read her like she can read him.

* * *

If she stays another minute alone and directionless in the apartment, she thinks she may punch the sun herself before Black*Star can take the credit. She'd had the idea to drive out to Vegas and surprise Soul on his business trip, but she didn't want to take his bike without his permission, and tried to rent a car instead. That, however, had only ended in expletives and failure.

More things Maka has learned about adult life:

3: Persons under the age of 21 are not allowed to rent a vehicle in the state of Nevada, regardless of your meister rank.

Given the state of their budget right now, it's for the best that she didn't blow it on renting a car, but even trying to carry out a make-believe CSI investigation of the missing dress socks has lost its entertainment value. She'd found them all in Blair's stuffed-skull cave bed, back by the fake dangly uvula. Case closed. The magical cat herself is still holding a steady job at Chupa Cabra's, a fact which grates on Maka's nerves on new, improved levels, because a cat is bringing more income to the household than she is.

This creeping feeling of inadequacy is becoming harder to contain, spreading to every corner of her.

Blair is presently flat as a furry pancake on the kitchen floor, waiting for her next shift while exerting the least amount of heat-producing energy possible. A few paces away, her hat waves a wilting, pumpkin-shaped paper fan to help stir up a breeze. "When is Scythe-boy comin' home?" she asks.

All the letters in the help-wanted page of the Death City online community portal are blurring together, and Maka closes the laptop, pushing the overheating thing across the kitchen table and _away_. "Tomorrow, why?"

"'Coz he's not stubborn like you and turns the aircon down," the cat sighs.

"Don't be a baby. We're _not_ dying."

"Are you sure? Blair's seen you paralyzed in the infirmary and you looked way more alive than this," she says, the tip of her tail giving not so much as a twitch. "Besides, I've got nine lives on you. I'm not the baby."

Maka would very much like to throw a tantrum, but she'd rather sweat to death than prove the cat right. Both those revelations make her feel exponentially worse. With a sigh, she slumps down in her chair, sweaty legs squeaking on the seat. "I just don't know what I should do. I'm really bad at being normal."

"Hmm," says Blair. "What does Maka _wanna_ do?"

Fingers drumming impatiently atop the table, Maka mutters, "She wants to **fight**."

The cat gradually stretches into a long tube with pointy claws at either end, rolling to her back. "Well, is there a way to do that without hurtin' anybody?"

"Uh..." Maka's fingers pause as she tries to comprehend the very idea. " _What?_ How? That's kind of the whole point, isn't it?"

Blair blinks, head resting upside-down on the floor. "You're smart, Maka," she says, tip of her tail coming to life with a confident back-and-forth. "If anyone can find a way, it's you."

While she appreciates the vote of confidence, Maka's not so sure.


	4. fake it til you make it

At least she's getting some use out of the day planner she used in high school. She fills the days with interviews and odd-job openings, meal plans and Soul's ever-packed schedule. Now that autumn is trying to take hold in Death City, Maka keeps a keen eye out for seasonal work, though most places have begun putting up their _own_ addendums with crap like 'not accepting applications from E.A.T. alumni,' which surely must be discrimination.

She's talked Kid's ear off about it, but he'd only countered with, "And who do you suppose was the catalyst for that? Harvar was bad enough, and convincing Japan to take Star for three months was no easy task." Then he'd lifted his mask to take a sip of tea that did nothing to smooth the irritated canyon creasing his forehead. "I'm doing what I can, but keep in mind I _cannot_ continue to pay for your property damage. Yours is not the only tight budget in Death City."

So it's another day in the apartment, trying not to listlessly pace a hole into the floor. Thankfully, it's cool enough to keep the windows open and be able to breathe, which takes the slightest edge off her cabin fever. Tsubaki and Angela have come over for a visit, the former finishing up an email on her little laptop and the latter sprawled on her stomach, doing fifth-grade homework on the floor with her feet swinging behind her.

"Thanks for feeding us," says Tsu, stretching her arms overhead for a long sigh. "I'm swamped with translation work. I'm sure Star would've come if Father hadn't dumped him on a mountain with no cell service again."

Maka scoops leftovers for them to take home and yearns for some hardcore training in high elevation, wrestling mountain bears and giving Nakatsukasa-trained warriors the slip for a whole ninety days - a place where one can't be fired for roundhouse-kicking opponents right in the cash drawer. "Lemme know when he gets back," she says. "I can feel myself growing rust."

With a wry laugh, Tsubaki says, "I'll be happy to. He'll challenge anyone breathing whenever he finishes that kind of thing. Oh, before I forget." Out of her very chic-looking laptop bag, she pulls a battle-worn three-ring binder, stuffed to bursting and held together with enough washi tape to be considered a work of art. "I brought my notes!" It makes the dishes rattle when Tsubaki plops it on the table. "I donated the textbooks to the library a few years ago, though, so you oughta check there too."

Maka hands her a scuffed Cool Whip container with still-warm leftovers in payment. "Thanks, this'll help a lot."

"Thanks for this too," says Tsu, hefting the container for emphasis. "I'm glad the notes can get some more use, but why the sudden interest in massage? Are you trying to get certified?" Even Tsubaki's soul seems to light up at the prospect of Maka not being perpetually unemployed.

Her stomach does a guilty little somersault, because wanting to learn had purely been for the sake of her weapon, not about digging herself out of an unemployment hole; it had been the only productive thing she could think of that seemed to fit the bill of fighting without hurting anyone. Quietly, she says, "Um, not exactly, I'm-"

Angela cuts in with a proud, " **DONE**!" She holds up her worksheet in one hand, waving it like a victory flag. "Maka, can you check it for meeee? Please."

"...Only if you're spiritually prepared to have the hardest-grading kishin take a look at it," Maka says with her chin head high, though Angela knows this routine well enough to simply giggle.

As Maka takes the sheet and glances down the line of division problems, she says to Tsubaki, "Anyway I just wanted to find a way to help Soul a little." She hands the worksheet back to Angela with not an entirely forced smile. "You get to live another day. Good work, smartypants."

The girl parades around with the worksheet once more, performing a very Black*Star-esque victory dance. It's startling to see something so familiar performed by a person so small - and even more so to realize that in three years, Angela will be the same age Maka had been when she met Soul.

Trying to wrap her head around that idea creates a strange numbness, as if every constant which defines 'Maka Albarn' shrinks to something small and smothered within the shell of herself. Like a compass losing north, she can't discern where she is on earth; where it is she's supposed to stand. What is her role, now?

What is she _doing_ here?

"-sically why I studied it too, for Black*Star," Tsubaki is saying with an encouraging lilt, bringing Maka back from her weird detachment from the present moment. The weapon holds out a hand to Angela's head, pausing the girl's extended dance session. "Alright, pack up your stuff, we'll get dessert on the way home."

Angela tilts her head up beneath Tsubaki's hand, which pushes her tangle of strawberry-blonde curls over her eyes. "How many."

"One," says Tsu.

"Why's it never _more_ than one?"

A voice from the living room replies, "'Cause you only got one stomach, Tiny Dino." Soul shuts the front door behind him, and Angela tosses her homework aside with an overacted gasp.

She dashes to the door and leaps into his startled arms the exact way Patti used to with everyone in school. "Grasshopper!" she says, her skinny arms encircling his neck.

Maka watches her partner not-so-smoothly stifle a wince as he hefts the girl a bit higher in his arms. Tsubaki seems to notice this as well, walking over to them with a worried, "Ange, we've talked about tackling people right after work..."

"It's alright, this is just a pipsqueak anyway."

"Hey!"

Looking over Angela's explosion of hair, Soul finds Maka still standing by the kitchen table. "I'm home," he says, smile tired with a weariness she can nearly taste.

Maka crosses her arms, holding her elbows for a lack of anything better to do. "Welcome back," she says, automatic.

He tries to glean something from her behavior, but it's reflex to hide from that questing wavelength now. Upon seeing the mess of middle school paraphernalia on the floor, Soul turns his face to Angela and says, "How'd you manage with the homework?"

" _Death has had no victory, Grasshopper_ ," Angela replies, sage.

Tsubaki laughs outright at Soul's perplexed frown, and Maka yearns to join them - but upon seeing Soul in a suit and Tsubaki with her laptop bag in the crook of her elbow, both chatting with a girl at an age Maka still easily remembers _being_ , there's a gulf spanning the living room that she doesn't have any means to cross.

Instead, she turns around, gathering Angela's things into her school bag.

"Black*Star got her hooked on rewatching Kung Fu. _Again_ ," Tsubaki says with false annoyance.

"But shouldn't you be the grasshopper, Tiny?"

Angela makes a disappointed cluck of her tongue; a dead-ringer for Kim, age seventeen. "Star said you're the 'prentice 'coz you suck so bad. You keep gettin' beat up every day."

Maka looks at the binder of Tsubaki's notes and resolves to cross the sea to Normal or die trying, because this guilt is too much to bear.

* * *

The clouds part for all of five seconds. It's the first time he's bested Spirit strategically (as opposed to scraping by with sheer, desperate luck), but Death Scythe just laughs from the floor. Soul watches his five seconds of victory evaporate. This weasel of a human being has a terrifying level of tenacity.

Oh. That's probably where Maka gets it from, come to think of it.

" _Finally_ ," Spirit says, dusting off his suit as he gets back on his feet. "Alright. Set him loose!"

Soul shakes sweat away from his eyes with a toss of his head, nervously watching the Death Room and its fake, coiled clouds streaking by. Nothing happens.

Spirit glances over his shoulder at Kid, who's perched in his throne with a tablet, an ankle resting atop a knee like some corporate-goth businessman. Without looking up from his SkullPad, Death dully repeats, "Set him loose."

Then Liz, dressed in a very flattering three-piece power suit, sashays over to a wall Soul hadn't been aware of because it's painted freakishly sky blue like everything else. She presses an intercom button and says, "Set 'em loose."

Which is the most low budget, DIY-bureaucratic chain of events Soul has ever witnessed. He'd like to say as much, because he's the only one in the room beat up and heaving for air, and bitching about it should be his given right, but Patti's voice booms over a speaker system before he can get a word out.

" _Releasing the mountain-twunk in three...two...one-_ "

Fine. Bring it on. He might be just a former rich kid still alienated by half the crap in this city, but right now he's ready for anything: from weird eldritch creeps popping out from behind the throne to the sky opening up and Asura himself appearing.

Nothing still happens. No creaking trap doors, no alarms or sirens.

Just around the moment he begins to wonder what a twunk is, Black*Star silently assaults him.

If only because in recent weeks he's become accustomed to sensing when _he's about to die,_ Soul manages to reinforce his spine with enough demon steel to prevent permanent damage, but it still sucks when he gets two very Black*Star feet in the back with enough velocity to slam him into the floor and be ridden like a skateboard through the Death Room's grave markers.

Bastard probably learned that from Kid. "Uhg, you're too _quiet_ now," he groans from the floor.

Black*Star steps off Soul's body and loudly stretches like disembarking from a long train ride. Cordial, he looks down and offers a hand. " _Time carves you, Grasshopper_ ," he says by way of cryptic-ass greeting.

Soul takes the hand and creaks upright. He wants to ask, 'Why are you so lame?' and 'Why so much Kung Fu?' and 'What does that even _mean_?' because it sounds like he's just been congratulated for being old and out of shape.

Instead, he just says, "God you **reek** dude, what the hell."

Star shrugs. "Been trainin' on a mountain for ninety days. Didya miss me?"

No. In fact, Black*Star had not crossed his mind once because Soul's been so busy kissing geopolitical ass and fighting for his life against Maka's old man, desperately trying to catch up to the adulthood pace of everyone else.

He knows sarcasm is a weakness, but he just can't help himself. "Oh, absolutely," he says, flat as a coffin lid as he shakes gravestone dust out of his hair.

Now that the amount of pains in his ass in the room have increased by two-hundred percent, Soul leans to one side to say around Black*Star, "I seriously doubt your training went like this. Now you're pitting me against a guy who can _eat lasers_?"

Spirit smiles like it's the best day of his life as he sidles over to the two of them. He puts a hand on Black*Star's shoulder. "Worse! He's gonna be my partner."

Soul closes his eyes for a good second and reluctantly opens them again only to find everything exactly how he remembers it.

"Full offence," says Black*Star, shrugging from beneath Spirit's hand, "you're not my type - you're like my third dad." Then he adds with a sunny smile, "Also, sorry, I'm taken."

Spirit makes a face like he's just stepped in fresh dog poop with a bare foot. For once, Soul sympathizes. And then, from the throne, Kid monotonously says, "Sorry, he's taken."

The highest ranking weapon in the literal world pinches the bridge of his nose because he is, in this exact moment, not the most obnoxious person here. "That's not what I-"

Black*Star has already turned away and abandoned him and Soul, bulleting towards Kid at a speed that nearly leaves a vacuum of air behind him. "I knew you missed me!"

Before he gets to the throne, a glowing shield the shape of a skull materializes between him and Kid. Soul expects Star to slam headlong into it - or maybe through it because, shit, the guy can levitate so who even knows anymore - but he comes to a tidy, respectful halt a half-foot away, still looking utterly pleased with himself.

Kid taps a few things on his tablet's screen. "Focus, Black*Star."

Star makes a show of pressing a chaste kiss to his hand and then using it to smear his affection all over the shield with a shrieking squeal his palm like a vulgar window washer. Liz gags from the other side of the room.

"Same," Soul says.

Black*Star throws an arm behind him without a backglance, unerringly pointed in Spirit's direction. "Alright let's do this Number Three," he says, and Soul suddenly remembers what's going on here.

Spirit transforms and arcs into Black*Star's waiting hand. At first, Spirit weighs the meister down, Star straining to hold him off the ground, but after a breath, Death Scythe's true talent shines, adapting to his partner's wavelength.

When Star hefts up Spirit like he's made of air, it's reminiscent of Maka in a very not wistful nor nostalgic way. Then Black*Star turns his head and _focuses_.

"As a non-autonomous weapon I would just like to state, for the record," Soul says, sprouting blades out of his arms more out of nervous reflex than any kind of premeditation, "that I think this is very, very unfair."

Liz, who holds up a video camera so they can all watch him get his ass kicked in high-def slow motion later, says, "They wouldn't bring out this kinda torture already if they didn't think you were strong enough, yanno." The camera beeps as the lens cover opens.

When framed that way, it almost sounds like praise. Soul doing objectively well is not something he'd considered as a possibility. He's stunned.

Then Black*Star shifts his weight just the slightest, Spirit twirling effortlessly in his hands. The hairs on the back of Soul's neck stand and silently scream in terror. "No stress bro," Star says. " _Let yourself be shaped according to your nature_."

He's pretty sure that 'shape' will be retired at twenty-five, and he wants to go home. Soul steels his nerves with an imitated confidence he hopes will someday truly arrive, and says, "Do your worst, then," because the faster he can get through this, the sooner his meister will stop worrying herself into another dimension.

* * *

He'll never ask for a massage, but he never denies her if she offers. He melts under her hands, and after she's worked even a fraction of the tension in his neck, the harsh edge to his eyes eases. He smiles a little wider. He _sleeps_.

But in the past few weeks he's been coming home so twisted up that Maka just doesn't know how to help him. Tsu told her she'd donated her massage textbooks to the library, so Maka pushes through the heavy glass doors on a mission. Soul keeps pushing himself to make up for her inability to be a Normal Adult; it's the least she can do.

The Death City Memorial Library had been built roughly four years ago, unveiled on the anniversary of the Sanzu Lines connecting. It's a staggering building, with multiple wings packed with looming rows of bookcases. In a word, paradise.

She hasn't quite memorized where everything is yet, but the fault of that mostly lies in her being too short to scout the upper shelves without either finding a ladder or doing some parkour - the latter of which is banned six-hundred times over per the signs displayed in every nook and cranny of the building.

Maka double-checks a slip of paper with a book title she'd written down before shoving it back into her jacket pocket and making her way to the reference section. The wing is fairly empty, barring a few harrowed-looking civilian students and a handful of elderly folk, so it's criminally easy to pick out the sounds of someone playing Animal Crossing above her.

Playing a video game on hallowed ground aside, looking _up_ and recognizing Harvar Éclair's Spartoi-edition loafer twitching back and forth to the 5 PM background music of AC:New Leaf as it dangles off the edge of the bookcase is more than enough to ignite her with indignant rage. She, a public threat comparable to Black*Star, must suffer eternal unemployment, yet this jerk who's as much a problem death-child as she is has a job and _gets to catch bugs for museums on the clock_.

Something in her snaps. Maka drops her bag, the noise causing that foot to pause. She takes five steps back so she can wall-run up the bookcase, yank Harvar back down to the floor, and violently sling him by the ankle into the Ornamental Plants and Garden Design section.

Steel-reinforced and intensely displeased, Harvar had been alert enough to not take injury when slamming into the shelves and crashing to the carpet, reference books falling around him in disarray. His ankle still in her grip, he glares undiluted murder at her, which she returns in kind.

"What the _shit_ , Albarn," he says lowly. She's ready to fling him across the aisle into the other bookcase, but his ankle promptly sparks in her hand, electricity crackling and popping until she backs off to a distance he deems acceptable.

He gets to his feet, and this is when she notices him cradling something in his arm. He'd protected his 3DS with his life and it only makes Maka _madder._

" _If you're just gonna play games, give me your job instead, asshole!_ "

He gives her a blank look before carefully stowing the 3DS on the nearest shelf. He says, "Firstly, please lower your voice, we're in a library," _you moron_ silently tacked on the end as he straightens a twisted pant leg.

Maka simply yells, grabbing the nearest books and hurling them wholesale at his face. What he can't zap out of the way, he deflects with a transformed arm, slowly scaling back up the shelves to get higher ground.

"Does your weapon know you're here?" he sneers.

She gets post-annoyance flashbacks to Ox at the police station. " _He's not my keeper_ ," she spits back, itching to kick him right in the cash drawer but forced to stay at long range. Maka grabs a book as thick as her leg and flings it at him. "At least my weapon doesn't slack off on the job!"

Harvar makes a face, bemused as the book crashes at his feet with smoking pages. "What? Well, at least my meister gets a **paycheck**."

With a roar, Maka cat-leaps and grabs the top of the bookcase with both hands, hauling herself up as he backs away a few feet. From this vantage point, she finds the tops of all the bookcases in the wing are littered with _furniture,_ with chairs and cushions and rugs scattered across the entire reference section.

"Have you been _living here_?" She punts the smoking textbook out of her way, stomping after him. "GIVE ME YOUR JOB YOU UNGRATEFUL PIECE OF LEAD!"

This, of all things, seems to make something snap in Harvar as well. His lips pull back into a snarl as he says, wild-eyed, "I am two-hundred-and- _fifty percent_ more conductive than lead!"

Which isn't relevant, but he's pissed and she's pissed and that's enough justification for her to grab the nearest oversized potted plant and heft it over her head. Just as she's about to hurl it at him with every ounce of strength she has, something dawns in his face and his attitude completely reverses.

He rushes to stop her from throwing the plant, hands held up in wary surrender. "Woah, okay I'm lead- Albarn you win, I yield...just put the ivy down."

"I'm gonna put it down your throat-"

" _You can have my job_ ," he hisses, reaching for the plant. "Just chill out, please."

Oh, that's right. 'Chill.' The stuff of which she reportedly has none. Her arms relax a fraction. Maka skeptically asks, "You'll really give me your job?"

Harvar takes the pot from her grasp and huffs. "I mean, _I guess._ I don't understand why you want it, it's not like I'm getting paid."

"I… what? You're not?"

"This is volunteer work," he says, looking over the plant's many vines. "Or maybe community service, I don't know."

The temperature of Maka's face skyrockets. Desperate to salvage any part of her pride, she petulantly argues, "W-well, that doesn't give you a free pass to be lazy on the job."

Harvar blinks, unimpressed. "Technically, today is my day off," he says, and the fact that she'd attacked him without warning speaks for itself.

Her mouth falls open and stays that way until she decides she has nothing she can say and just covers up her face entirely with both hands. "Why are you even here then," she whines.

"If you're back to being rational, please realize who you were about to throw this plant at." Confused, Maka parts her hands and watches Harv edge to one side, revealing four children at the far end of the book case, piled together on a rug and watching a tiny TV. Marie's five year old, Shelley, sits in Angela's lap, wedged between pots of Thunder and Fire, all four of them wearing wireless headphones and transfixed by the screen.

In unison, they attempt to mimic a quote they've heard back at the TV.

Helplessly, Maka says, "They're watching Kung Fu."

Harvar returns the plant to its rightful place. "It's our turn to babysit them tonight, but Ox got called in. The library has all three seasons on DVD."

Not that that explains why they're watching it on top of the bookshelves instead of the media wing, but Maka is too ashamed to bring it up. "I'm really, really sorry."

The weapon shrugs. "It's...frustrating. I get it." When she says nothing in response, he sighs. "Things change and we have to adapt. But, even if I'm bad at it right now, I'm trying to help how I can," he says. "Is that not enough?"

It's clear he isn't asking because he needs an answer - he already has one. He's only brought it up for her to figure it out for herself.

Behind him, Angela says to the TV, " _That what is simple is rarely understood_ ," too loud over her headphones.

Maka considers all this for a long moment before slowly taking the slip of paper out of her pocket and holding it out like a peace treaty. "Can you help me find this?"

Harvar glances at the title and freezes before he can take the paper from her. "Uuuuh oh."


	5. adaptation

He's filling up the bike, watching the digital numbers on the fuel pump tick by, when his phone rings. The number is unfamiliar, and the temptation to ignore it is strong. Alas: adulthood. Soul answers.

"Evans," he says.

" _Evans_ ," says Ox.

"Oh no."

The officer has a thinness to his voice which Soul had only previously associated with unscheduled quizzes and written essays. " _No one can give me a positive injury report yet, but it seems Albarn got into it at the library with Harv_ ," he says, his police cruiser revving in the background as he accelerates.

Soul stops the gas pump. "Soooo, when you say 'Albarn,' do you mean-"

" _Of course I mean Maka, why the hell else would I bother to call you, Evans_."

"Sorry for trying to be optimistic this **one** time in my entire life," he gripes, twisting the bike's fuel cap back on. "I'll meet you there."

Not that there'd been a staff meeting about it or anything, but it's become common knowledge that any combination of Black*Star, Maka, or Harvar being reported in the same incident was to be treated as a worst case scenario. Soul guns the bike through the city, and doesn't meet Ox at the library so much as see him speed by at an intersection and tailgate him the rest of the way.

Once inside, the ground floor is deserted, cleared out by other officers at the scene. Soul follows Ox past the checkout counters. "No, just let me handle it," the meister says into an earpiece. "I have more experience being electrocuted anyway," he adds with a grumble. Then he stops so fast Soul nearly runs into him.

"What. What is it? What happened?"

Ox frowns over his shoulder. "Sorry, could you please shut up? My Perception isn't as strong as the _power couple's_."

Despite reflexively wanting to point out that he and Maka are not a couple whatsoever, Soul shuts up.

Catching the wavelength trail, Ox leads them to some obscure-ass wing of the library, and debris starts making regular appearances: avalanches of books with singed pages, a couple of scattered 'NO PARKOUR' signs. There's even a signature Maka Chop dent on the edge of a shelf.

"No blood, though. That's good, right?" Optimism doesn't suit him.

Ox ignores him, stopping at a bookcase and looking up. Not long after, Harvar peeks over the edge. Why in Death's name he's on top of it instead of on the floor, no one cares to explain. Soul thinks he hears some music that may or may not be from Animal Crossing and nothing feels real anymore.

After a moment of really weird silence that Soul is glad he can't understand, Harvar says, "I'm innocent, officer."

"Can someone please tell me what's going on in this damn town," Soul complains.

With a sigh, Ox holds out an expectant hand, and Harvar eventually transforms across the distance. As the officer carts away his weapon for a chat, Soul hears Harv say, "The kids are fine."

Soul still has no idea where Maka is; it's been difficult to hear her wavelength lately, and as much as that scares him, he's got other things to worry about. He supposes with all the property damage already done, no one is going to scold him for climbing the bookcase, so Soul makes a leap and hauls himself over the top. He ends up face to face with Maka sitting cross-legged on a rug, deeply absorbed in a lightning-scorched reference book that looks about as thick as one of her legs.

A bit of her hair is frizz-fried, but she otherwise appears fine. Further down the line, he sees a gaggle of kids watching _that friggen TV show_ , also on top of the bookcase for some reason. He sits down and crosses his own legs. "Maka?"

It's a delayed reaction, but her head pops up, and she looks the most like herself he's seen in nearly six months. "Hm? Oh! Hi." She glances to her right, confused. "Where'd Harvar go?"

"The police are here."

He watches the color drain from her face. "Oh." Maka puts a hand over her eyes. "I made a mistake."

Soul slouches, resting his elbow on a knee and propping up his chin. "Well, are you alright?"

"Yeah. ...Sorry." She gestures towards all the dead book bodies in the area with a wave of her fingers, face falling back into the one he's used to seeing now - the one carved by time. "This was all my fault. I attacked him unprovoked."

"What? Why?"

Maka's forehead scrunches beneath her fringe, and she shakes her head a tiny bit like she doesn't really know, herself. Her fingers curl against the pages of her textbook, slowly clenching in distress. "I guess I was frustrated," she says.

He doesn't get it, but he also might get it more than he really wants to, because beneath her hands are words like 'recovery' and 'sprain,' with diagrams of muscles and rotator cuffs; he can't help but connect himself to those things and feel at fault.

"Are you off from work?" she asks. He nods. "How are you feeling today?" she asks.

Gaze still fixated on the textbook, Soul worries if he keeps letting her pamper him because he's touch-starved and lonely, he's just going to make things worse. He needs to stop leaning on her so much.

"I'm fine."

* * *

Spring is short-lived in Death City - Blair turns on the air conditioner by mid-March. They can afford it now after months of budget adjusting and Soul getting a small raise; Death had convinced a few sponsors to fund the continuing tradition of helping young weapons and meisters control their abilities for 'normal life.'

It feels like Maka is getting the hang of all this massage therapy. Having her brain work hard again is nice, and learning something new all the time brings a satisfaction she'd missed. Every now and then she gets to apply what she's learned on Soul, and he stands taller and sleeps longer. But he's also working harder, too - he works and trains and travels so much she can only see him late at night, rubbing knots out of his calves and shoulders before he falls asleep, and when it's that late she ends up passing out, too.

By morning, he's already gone. Sometimes, when she studies in his room to stay up for him, she wakes up under the covers he's tucked around her without having heard him come home at all.

Weeks go by like this. When she wakes yet another morning with Blair curled into her hip, his side of the bed still covered in her textbooks, she resolves to find him, herself.

She doesn't even use a pretense of bringing him lunch - just walks into Shibusen and down its familiar halls straight to the teacher's lounge. Seated at one of the skull-shaped tables, Soul leans too far back in a plastic chair. He's holding his phone to an ear, draping his free arm on his head with his hand dangling to one side.

"Do the reporters have to be there, though?" he says, and Maka recognizes the familiar cadence of Kid speaking on the other line. Soul groans and says, "Understood."

Edging closer, she hears Kid say, " _Anything else_?"

"I guess tell Star he's a choad?" Soul offers with a half-hearted wave of the dangly-hand.

Death sighs.

"You're the one who asked."

" _Don't be late_ ," says Kid before hanging up.

Soul makes his own sigh, sliding his phone to the table and watching it spin in place for a moment. "Alright," he says, tilting his head back. "Who's eavesdro- **Maka** ," he starts, pulling his arm off his head and tipping his chair too far back. She rushes forward as he wobbles, helping him set all four chair legs back to the floor. "What're you doing here?" he asks over his shoulder.

Hands still on the back of his chair, she realizes she hadn't planned on anything to say, only intent on finding him the moment she'd left the apartment. "Um. I haven't seen you in awhile. So. I came to say hi."

"Oh. Hi." Soul turns back to the table, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "Sorry. Been busy."

It's completely automatic for her hands to raise just a few inches and place them on his familiar shoulders, thumbs pressing where he's always liked it best. For a moment, his chin dips down with a rough sigh as he enjoys it, but something about the whole moment feels empty, and she can't identify why.

Soul then does something he's never done, reaching back to gently pluck her hands away from his shoulders. "Thank you," he says quietly. He turns around in his seat, still holding her right hand in his, and rubs his thumb on the underside of her wrist. "But I'm fine."

Dumbfounded, she tries to catch a hint of his wavelength, and is startled to not find it at all. It's barred off from her, locked away as she had locked herself from him before, even as he releases her hand to gently touch a dark circle under one of her eyes. "Worry about yourself. I know you're not sleepin' enough," he says, voice like a stranger's.

His phone buzzes with a timed alarm. He slowly scoots the chair back so she can get out of the way for him to stand. "I'll be gone for a couple days," Soul says, grabbing that ugly yellow duffel bag from beneath the table and slinging it over his shoulder. "I'll text when I get back, okay?"

"Okay," she replies, too in shock to muster anything else as she watches him unceremoniously leave.

She's met with the same silence as the apartment. Maka looks at the chair he'd vacated, an angry frown pulling at her face. This is the exact opposite of what she'd wanted. And for the first time in what feels like ages, she finds north.

She wants to _fight._

Things change, so she'll adapt. Instead of fighting monsters or criminals, she'll fight for herself.

* * *

Patti has Shelley on her shoulders, chasing a play-terrified Liz around the Death Room as Marie drinks tea on the throne, watching the proceedings.

Stein still wears those god-awful sweaters, revealing another grey monstrosity after shedding his lab coat. Spirit looks twice as light in Stein's hands as he had in Black*Star's, which Soul had not thought was remotely possible.

At least Soul is being wielded by Death this time, but it seems the need to check the fridge for Maka is more deeply ingrained in his subconscious when he's in his weapon body. It's not really a problem, but Kid is definitely getting annoyed.

[ _I am certain there is a level of hypocrisy in my bringing it up, given my own compulsions, but please do something about that. It is profoundly distracting._ ]

[ Sorry. I'm workin' on it. ]

[ _This lesson will not be a walk in the desert. While I regrettably do not know how to emphasize 'Maka Is Not Here' in the exact amount you require for it to stick, I would appreciate it if you accepted it soon._ ]

[ Man, what do you think I've been trying to do for the past year? It's hard. ]

The sound of Kid's soul changes pitch in his confusion. [ _ **Year?**_ _What are y-_ ]

But the thought is interrupted by Stein. "Wouldn't Maka have been a more appropriate teacher for this?" he drawls, doing a few warm-up moves with Spirit. "I had plans today."

"'Doing science' is not plans. That's your default setting," says Marie, blowing steam away from her cup of tea. "You need the exercise."

Stein's lips pull into a line, but he removes his glasses and tosses them into Marie's lap for safekeeping before adopting a more appropriate stance for sparring.

Through resonance, Soul can feel Death observing that stance and adapting it for himself. Testing Soul's weight in his hands, Kid says, "I talked to her first, actually. She mirrored to ask my opinion regarding massage therapy certifications. She appeared busy. Begin."

What? He hadn't even known she was interested in doing that-

[ _Pay attention,_ ] his new meister insists, meeting Stein and Spirit with a sparking crash.

Right. He needs to focus. He needs to remember how all this fighting used to go, but not remember her at the same time.

They're practically strangers now, anyway. If she's doing well on her own, that's good. If getting back to her normal self requires him to not be there, then...that's how it'll have to be.

[ _...Soul._ ]

[ I'm fine. ]

[ _My carefully curated aesthetic, you're fine. Do not attempt to lie to me in my own resonance, I'm a god. We shall discuss this later._ ]


	6. maybe this is adulthood

Tar bubbles out of the patched street as Maka leaves the exam building, the summer smog of Las Vegas like a film of pure, hot _gross_ settling over everything. She digs her phone out of her bag to call a cab for the airport, but someone says, " _Psst._ "

Maka looks up and takes a step back, unprepared for a dark rental car parked by the curb and for her dad to be leaning up against it.

"Papa, what on earth."

"Soul told me." Not 'Evans,' not 'that punkass.' Spirit opens the passenger door for her and bows like she's royalty, which always makes her feel ridiculous but never quite enough to tell him to knock it off.

Maka hitches her bag higher on her shoulder and steps into the car. She's surprised Soul had even read the message she'd left on the fridge, much less considered doing anything with it. "To the airport?"

"I even got the jet," Spirit says, waiting for her to settle comfortably before shutting the door and walking around to get in behind the wheel.

At the risk of over-inflating his ego, she admits, "Thank you, this is...really sweet. How'd you manage the jet? Didn't Kid go ballistic about the fuel costs?"

"There's some benefits to being Death Scythe," he says happily, pulling out into the street. "How'd the test go?"

"Cakewalk."

"Attagirl."

She's not a little kid anymore, but praise from her father still feels nice after putting in over five hundred hours of training just to take a test today. Still, she can't help from asking, "So...Soul told you to come get me?"

"He might've passed along the information after training." After she fidgets in her seat for the entire duration of a stoplight, he indulges her. "He's doing well."

"Is he?"

Spirit scoffs. "I think he'll do fine. He's stronger than I was, then," he says with a sour twist of his mouth, and Maka wishes she had recorded it on her phone because Papa will probably never admit that again for the rest of his life. "He hates the politics, but I think he can handle it. You made a good deathscythe, babygirl."

She lets the nickname slide; all she can do is stare at her father in shock, which he notices in his peripheral.

"What, do I have a booger?"

" _No,_ I'm just not sure this is really happening. You complimented Soul like four times and I'm thinking I'm trapped in an illusion or something."

Spirit laughs and pulls onto the interstate. "Times change eventually," he says, checking over his shoulder for traffic, and Maka sees a streak of silver hidden in the red of his hair. "I'm proud of you, you know? Not just for being a meister or making a deathscythe, and not _just_ you, either."

A mixture of emotions twirl in her chest, and Maka pulls her feet up to the seat, wrapping her arms around her knees to settle in and listen.

He gestures to all the populous traffic before them, and says, "I know it's not all finished, but you kids helped this happen. You brought a peace I never thought I'd see. None of us did. When I'm retired, I dunno what I'll even do with myself.

"So I'm proud of you. Your mama and I, we never raised you thinking about a world like this - never tried to imagine it. We taught you how to survive hard, scary things, but nothing about growing up. And you've gone and figured it all out anyway. You give me hope for you kids. And maybe some for me too."

"Papa..."

When Spirit looks over, she can't hide her gross, tear-smeared face fast enough. He leans over and opens the glove compartment in front of her seat, revealing a stack of napkins. "Grab me one, too. I've been holding it back but if even _you're_ doing it, I'm legally obligated to do it," he says with a loud sniffle.

She just takes the whole stack of them for good measure. The both of them bawl all the way to the rental car return like a couple of idiots, eating through the napkins in minutes. At the bottom of stack is a little envelope, which Maka holds up with a incoherent noise and a question mark.

Papa blows his nose before saying, "Oh right. That's your party invitation. Can you believe I've been Death Scythe for twenty years?"

"Mmhm," she says easily, dabbing her eyes as he parks the car. "Since I was born."

After staring at her for a wide-eyed moment, Spirit's eyes gloss over again.

"Nonononono we're out of napkins!"

* * *

She didn't attend the inauguration. He didn't think he would be enough reason for her to come, but he'd hoped that maybe, with her father also being part of the ceremony, that she might. He knows Spirit has been spending more time with her lately, now that he's been in the process of stepping down as Death Scythe for a couple months. But she didn't show up.

It actually makes him angry, to be perfectly honest. He's pissed at Maka on Spirit's behalf, which is the most peculiar feeling he's ever had in his life. He's grown to respect her old man, and it's a little disorienting.

With the ceremony over, the more outgoing people are taking the spotlight at Death's Gallows, Black*Star and Kilik causing cycles of laughter through the mingling crowd. Soul finds a moment to breathe in peace over by the one of the nearly-empty punch bowls. With a sigh, he ladles himself a cupful and is about to take a sip when Angela's head materializes, hovering over the cheese tray.

" _Oh my ffff_ -art. What. Are you _doing_ here?" he wheezes, putting the cup down on the table before he makes a mess all over his suit. "Isn't it a school night?"

She smiles, her lips and teeth stained pink from the punch. "It's summer vacation, silly. I came with Kim and Jack."

Soul is at a loss; he'd entirely forgotten the concept of summer vacation. Maybe _this_ is adulthood. "Well. I guess try not to give anyone else a heart attack, Tiny."

"Fiiine," she says, a cube of cheese floating in her invisible hand and popping into her mouth. "Wanna see somethin' cool?"

Putting his hands in his pockets, he says, "Well yeah, duh."

Angela fully materializes, kneeling on the snack table dressed in something very purple, frilly, and covered in glitter. And from wrist to elbow is a neon green cast.

"I broke my arm!"

"I see that," says Soul, nodding. "Impressive. I'm surprised Kim didn't just heal it."

"Yep. Stein says, um." She has to take a mental break for more cheese. "Stein says a meister's gotta heal the normal way, or you get all reckless like Black*Star. That's when they gotta send you to the mountains, with no wi-fi."

Soul covers up a surprised laugh by coughing into his fist. "That's really...good advice."

"I mean. Like. I wanna do mountain training like Star, but I don't like no wi-fi," she says, serious as Death.

Turning around so he can sit on the edge of the table and not be towering over her so much, Soul asks, "So you started meister training, huh?"

Angela warily smells an unknown food (it's cauliflower), scrunches up her face in accosted horror, and puts the floret back on the tray. "Mhm, yeah. Kim is really cool. Anyway so hey, _what troubles you, Grasshopper_?"

Soul blinks. "Me? I'm troubled?"

The girl nods, diverting her attention from the cheese and giving him all one-hundred percent of it. "You are _very_ troubled. You make the same kindsa noises Maka makes sometimes. Like you're lonely."

"I'm-" He scratches the side of his head only to belatedly realize his hair is still gelled back like a pompous corporate weasel for all the photos. "I guess you're right."

Angela adjusts her legs under her and folds her hands in her lap, as attentive as Tsubaki with any meaningful conversation but with the added bonus of a florescent green worm of an arm.

Soul opens his mouth, then shuts it. He wonders why lying to himself is second-nature, yet he's physically unable to lie to a little girl. "I'm not feeling great, because Maka didn't come tonight," he says. "I miss her. I think we might not be friends, anymore."

He watches her eyes go wide as she absorbs these truths, and his throat gets a little tight. She asks, " _Really_?" and he has to look away for a couple seconds before he nods. But then Angela's face crinkles up with her concern. "But, that doesn't make any sense, are you _for sure_?"

"Well. No, I guess I'm not sure-sure."

"Right? 'Cause I don't think Maka would ever wanna stop being your friend. I _really_ like her."

Man, if this kid gets him choked up right now, everyone in Death City is going to find out. "I like her too."

Angela looks around the room with a big frown. "She really didn't come?"

"Yeah."

"That's not right," she says with utter conviction, her hand smacking her knee. "She's always worrying 'cause of you training to be like Death Scythe! I think you should - I mean, um, can't you go talk to her?"

Soul sucks in a deep breath and lets it with a sigh. Offering her a half-smile, he says, "Guess I should, huh?"

She nods her head half a dozen times. "Oh! I think I maybe know where she is," she says.

"...Do you."

Holding up the green worm of her arm, she displays Maka's signature in sharpie on the wrist of her cast. "Yep."

* * *

"You really _do_ work here," someone says behind her, and Maka nearly drops an entire jar of oil.

She whirls around, clutching the thing to her chest and finding Soul standing in the doorway of the infirmary.

" _You scared me_ ," she says with a huff. She'd been packing up for the night, and he'd been the very last person she'd expected to appear.

The corner of his mouth picks up. "My bad."

"What're you doing here? Are you hurt? I'm, uh, I'm not really the nurse, but-"

Soul holds up a hand, cautiously stepping into the room. "It's fine, I promise. Heard you might be here so I came to say hi?"

Out of habit, Maka reaches for his wavelength, but it's still tucked safely away from her, even though he's sought her out on purpose. She's not sure what that means at all. "Hi. I meant to tell you I got a job but we just kept missing... each, um." She trails off, unable to look away from his head. " _Wow._ N-nice hair."

His shoulders inch up as he looks askance. "Thanks, I hate it."

"Oh good," she says, turning around to hide the way her mouth is screwing up around a smile, because he reminds her so much of how he'd looked at thirteen. She puts the jar back on her little cart of massage supplies in the corner of the room. "It doesn't suit you at all."

Soul groans like the last of his self esteem has given up the ghost. "I know, I had a... thing to go to earlier."

"A thing? Oh, Papa did mention some kinda thing tonight. We're supposed to go have dinner afterward," she says, closing curtains and straightening the rest of her work area for the next day. "I'm surprised you went. I guess it's over?"

When she turns back around, Soul is watching her with an expression she has never once seen before, and she can't get a read on him at all. He slowly tilts his chin down, looking up at her with an unnerving kind of precision.

He says, "Why's that a surprise?"

Maka shrugs a shoulder, still trying to figure out what that face means. "I mean, you always hated that kinda thing before."

Soul looks away with a sort-of laugh through the nose. "Yeah, you're not wrong," he says. He's a stranger to her again- an unknown man with a clip in his tie, further away from her than an acquaintance- and it makes her want to reach out and touch him because they can't seem to connect any other way.

"Listen, Soul-"

"Babygirl, you ready to go?" says Spirit, poking his head around the door. When he sees her and Soul standing a painfully awkward distance from each other, he says, "Oh. Well, since you're here, I may as well tell you: you looked better with the octopus hair, kid."

Rolling his eyes so hard that the red completely disappears, Soul waves a lazy hand and makes his way back to the door. "Yeah, yeah, have a good time. Later."

"Papa..." Maka sternly says as she grabs her bag from the peg on the wall. She'll have to find another time to talk to Soul and figure out what's changed between them.

She flips the lights for the infirmary and shuts the door behind her. While turning her key in the lock, Spirit calls out to Soul with a strangely serious, "Hey, congrats."

Looking over her shoulder, Maka watches Soul pause, his back turned to them. "Thanks," he says quietly before making his way down the hall.

Her heart twists anxiously beneath her ribs. "Papa," she says after Soul turns the corner, "did he get an award or something tonight?"

Spirit pauses, giving her a considering glance that does nothing for the bad feeling she's picking up on. He offers her his elbow, which she cautiously wraps her arm through.

"Sweetheart, I don't want to sound disapproving, but I was surprised you didn't come tonight."

She brings up her free hand, chewing on a thumbnail. "I know you said it was the anniversary for being Death Scythe, but I guess I didn't think it would be that big of a party? I'm sorry, Papa. But, what does Soul have to do with it?"

This is enough to make Spirit pause mid-stride, and he quickly looks down at her face with concern. "...Maka, the party _wasn't_ for me."

Maka's gut begins its descent to the basement mazes of Shibusen. "What do you mean it wasn't for you," she flatlines.

"Do you still have that invitation?"

Her blood is roaring in her ears as she releases Spirits elbow to mechanically paw through her purse for the little envelope that had migrated to the bottom in the past five days. It's difficult to open with her fingers shaking so damn much, so filled with terror at what she fears she'll find.

It's not an invitation to Spirit's 20th anniversary party. That part had been tacked on like an afterthought to Soul Evans replacing him as Death Scythe. Maka covers her mouth and makes an alarmed little yelp.

Spirit pulls the invitation away and puts a hand at her back, urging her down the hall after Soul. She breaks into a run, and the next few minutes she isn't fully aware of anything other than her burning lungs and that look on Soul's face, because he'd realized she had no idea what she'd missed, and instead of calling her out on it, he'd simply let it slide and disappeared out of sight.

From the very start, she'd been angry for being left out of all his Death Scythe training, because they'd done everything together until now, had achieved and survived and lost and cried and _lived_ , and yet Maka had missed the most important thing that's ever happened in his career. She can't think of any way to make it up to him but if she doesn't catch him right now she's convinced there'd be no salvaging their relationship at all.

Maka makes it outside Shibusen, taking massive leaps down the front steps to see Soul's bike come into view. He's starting the engine with that familiar rumble she's missed so much, and there's no way he'll be able to hear her over it, but she flies down the steps and still roars, "SOUL EATER EVANS!"

For just a fraction of a second, she thinks she feels his soul react to hers. He looks up in time to see her land at the bottom of the stairs and run headlong for him. She's wheezing and crying and yelling all at once when she reaches him, clutching at his shoulder to stay upright.

"I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry, I didn't realize-"

Soul cuts the engine, twisting on the bike to hold her up with both arms. "I know you didn't Maka, it's okay."

" **It's not okay!** " she shouts in his shocked face, crying all over herself. "Congratulations! You worked so hard! You shouldn't h-have been there alone! I'm proud of you! I should've been beside you!" She presses her face into his shoulder and wails out, "I don't wanna be anywhere but right beside you, Soul! _Do you hear me?!_ "

"I hear you," he says, voice thick in his throat. His wavelength is still too far for her to reach, but his arms come around her shoulders and tug her tightly into his chest. "I want that, too."


	7. time carves us, grasshopper

He had eventually shooed her back to her dad last night, seeing as it was his retirement party she'd also missed. The whole thing was equal parts sad and hopeful and awkward, and he'd been overwhelmed in at least twelve different ways, but when she went back up the steps of Shibusen he stayed until she reached the very top, where she in turn stayed and watched until he left the parking lot.

And when she came home later that evening, she cautiously climbed into bed with him and the cat, the three of them in one place for the first time in a long time.

He technically sleeps in late - his schedule today is a faculty-wide meet and greet with a bunch of big wig politicians and reporters as a follow up from yesterday's ceremony - but it's still only dawn, so he's surprised he's not the first one awake.

Maka is still beside him, the skin around her eyes irritated because she'd likely cried even more after they parted ways last night (and his probably don't look much better, to be honest). It's Blair who's missing.

There's no obvious sign of her, though. The most pressing matter right now is getting this gross-ass gel out of his hair and returning to octopus-head status. Liz being hired for Shibusen PR had been, overall, a good move, but she has a thing for making people photoready with the yakuza gangster look and it's not ideal.

Soul hunts for his duffel bag, because all his bathroom stuff is in it from overnighting at the school so much. He stumbles down the hallway, through the living room to the front door, which is where he'd dumped it last night, but it has vanished.

Blearily blinking as he surveys the apartment, he doesn't see it anywhere else obvious, either. He rubs his eyes for a long moment, and yeah, they're a little angry from all the abuse. He sighs. Then he sees his deodorant on the kitchen table in his peripheral.

In fact, _all_ the contents of his bag have been dumped on the table, as well as a mish-mash of other things like scissors, sewing odds and ends, and an extra large bottle of purple glitter glue. Context clues are ringing loud alarm bells in his head, and Soul pulls out a dining chair from beneath the table and finds his yellow and black duffel bag in the seat.

The shoulder strap has been reinforced with thick zig-zag stitches. Around the edges of the bag itself, where wear and tear had worn the fabric threadbare, various pumpkin-shaped patches have been sewed on, all of them with purple-glitter variations of his little sharp-toothed soul doodle.

From his bedroom doorway, Maka hoarsely says, "Where'd everybody go?"

Soul catches her attention, silently waving her over. She shuffles along with her socks and peers down at the chair.

The duffel has reached such a superb level of ugly that he's instantly in love. Inside the bag, Blair is kitty-snoring, curled into a donut.

"It's perfect," he quietly says, without a trace of sarcasm.

Maka nods, hiding a close-lipped smile behind a hand. When she looks back at him, her eyes go straight to his hair.

"Don't," he says before she can comment. He picks out some of the junk from his bathroom pile. "I'mma shower. Are you… um." It's still weird to be here with her, to have the air between them feel nothing like before but for that difference to not feel entirely wrong, either. He hasn't sorted out his emotions; about how to proceed.

Maka figures it out, though. "You wanna ride together to the faculty thing?"

He does. And after a couple of showers, some magically-prepared coffee, and burnt toast, they do. It's almost like going to class, but not quite. He parks in the _Reserved for Death Scythe_ space in the already-crammed lot, for starters. His face topped with that terrible weasel hair is now on a little plaque by the faculty lounge, which he promptly scythes off the wall. But they walk together to the auditorium, the loud murmur of a crowd spilling out the open doors.

The next hour and a half separates them, with Soul standing next to Death for the bulk of it, and Maka with the rest of the lower-ranking faculty as politicians and reporters make their rounds, the sound of camera shutters a constant backdrop. He's still not great at engaging in interviews, though he does a decent job at translating some of the things Kid says into concepts that normal people can grasp. But when someone asks if Death had always been his meister, Kid points out, "No, my personal weapons are the Thompson sisters. Maka Albarn is Soul's meister."

This gets a whole slew of people in line to talk to Maka, which he almost feels bad about, but it gives him a minute to lean over and say to Death, "Um. Aren't _you_ my meister now?"

"By virtue of being a shinigami, I'm technically any weapon's meister." Kid takes a moment to tug on the cuffs of his dress shirt, displaying them more neatly outside the sleeves of the Hot Topic blazer. "But it's good that you bring this up. You seem to have this idea that you must be a Death Scythe while removing any trace of Maka in your experience. That is not the case."

"Wh-" That was both an answer and topic-switch he had not expected whatsoever. He leans even closer, hissing, "Well, _wait,_ during resonance, weren't you were all up in my head yelling at me to accept ' _Maka's not here?_ '"

Kid rolls his golden eyes before turning and leveling Soul with a look that makes him feel much shorter than he actually is. "I was not yelling; you are merely oversensitive to anything that isn't delivered sarcastically."

That doesn't explain _anything_. It also makes him hunch over defensively, feeling like the underwear of his personality is on display.

"His Highness Mister Lord Death Sir," someone interrupts, and the two of them quickly return to more socially dignified postures.

Under his breath, Kid says, "Patricia, please," though there's a percentage of a smile creeping into his voice.

Patti smiles broad and bright. "The cameras are in position for the circus."

"Excellent. Ahem," he says, clearing his throat. One of his Sanzu lines begins to shimmer as he takes in a breath and announces in a creepy-resonant death god voice, " _If everyone will please be seated, we shall begin the official demonstration_."

Watching unprepared civilians experience that voice for the first time never gets old. Patti helps knee-shaking reporters take their seats, a few other faculty members doing the same. Soul hears Tsubaki translating for the chairman of the Japanese branch of Shibusen.

Standing over by Maka are Kilik, the Pots, and Angela, the latter of whom waving her green arm with excitement. He can't stop from smiling back.

Kid slips on a pair of black gloves - recommended by Maka - and holds out a hand to the side. Soul becomes the scythe, falling neatly into his grasp. The rest is pure choreographed garbage that Liz had concocted, knowing the flashiest demonstrations bring in the most generous sponsorships. Once they start resonating, he doesn't even really have to think about anything apart from ignoring the urge to check the mental fridge.

Which is perfect. [ Okay so, for a refresher, what the hell am I supposed to be doing as Death Scythe? You tell me to accept Maka isn't my meister, but then you tell everyone else she is? I don't get you. ]

The wavelength equivalent of an irritated sigh reverberates between them. [ _You are a weapon. I wield you. That's it. If my brother coalesces, or some clan of witch-ninjas starts an uprising and I need to cut them down, that is your job._ _Without such times, I suppose you are simply...a very overpowered bodyguard?_ ]

It gets a little complicated trying to parse all of that and shift into Demon Hunter at the same time, and Soul has to concentrate on holding resonance at such a frequency.

Kid has such over-engineered reserves of power that he hardly has to consider any of it. [ _As for Maka, I suppose I owe you something of an apology. I merely wanted you to stop doing...that thing you are literally doing right now!_ _It's_ _ **annoying.**_ ]

Wait, what? [ But I'm not even doing it! I think. ] If anything, it's almost easier to not constantly reach for Maka because he logically knows she's here in the room with them, even if he can't feel her.

The gears turn inside Death's head as he guides Soul into Kishin Hunter. [ _I see._ ]

[ See what? ]

[ _I see you are both annoying._ ] Another sigh. [ _I have an idea. Take this._ ]

If Soul had to explain in relatable terms what the actual hell Death the Kid does right then, the best he could come up with would be something like: a hand reaching into the back of the fridge, but it's not _his_ fridge, it's Kid's, and pulling out some forgotten box of Chinese food because Kid eats way better things than this on the regular. Soul is handed these leftovers, and then he instantly has a level of Perception that makes his brain explode.

After some consideration, Kid then takes about half of the Chinese food back. [ _Okay so, this appears to be a lot. For you. But do you hear that? That sound?_ ]

Soul makes a mental noise like a screaming motorcycle engine for a moment, trying to tune out the sixty-odd wavelengths of all the people in the room to focus on the one Kid is talking about. Then he recognizes it for what it really is.

[ _That,_ ] says Kid, [ _is the exact thing you do when you're looking for her, despite yourself._ _I don't know what's been going on between you the past year, but I fear you've been overthinking things._ ]

He certainly fits the profile. The 'noise' that Kid can't stand is a little blip-blink of G on the piano, like a satellite searching for a reply. It's changed from how his soul remembers it, but it's still undeniably Maka in a way that no one else can ever be her.

[ _Exactly. Things change. Time carves us, so the ways we know each other eventually look different. But you've said it since we were kids, haven't you? That the shape doesn't matter._ ]

The demonstration comes to an end, and while Death addresses the audience and answers several questions, he still holds the resonance open in a weirdly supportive kind of way. Soul feels Maka reaching for him, and he reads her soul in a way he's never been able to, before.

[ ...Have you been watching Kung Fu with everyone else? ] Soul absently asks.

Kid's wavelength makes an evasive kind of lurch. [ _It matters not. Are you two still partners or aren't you?_ ]

He doesn't know, but he wants to find out. He unfurls his heart. Reaches.

[ _O-oh! Um? Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean- this was really accidental!_ ]

While answering another reporter's question, Kid exerts a significant amount of energy to hide the twitch in his eye, which comes through to both Soul and Maka loud and clear. [ _Are you serious. Are you both so spiritually touch-starved that you just_ _ **fell**_ _into my resonance? I'm-_ ]

Wow, when was the last time he'd even resonated with Maka? He honestly can't remember.

Death's soul akin to nails on a chalkboard, he says, [ _The music is so much louder with BOTH of you, why must you be this way?_ ]

Offstage, Maka turns a near-fluorescent shade of red, privy to the echoes of Soul's sentimental affection.

Then things just get out of hand. [ _Hey what the hell is going on over there,_ ] says Black*Star, his wavelength as rowdy and feral as ever. [ _I get jealous easy - woah, what's with the tunes? Soul are you jamming in here, bro?_ ]

Patti and Liz join the resonance in unison. [ _We're boorrred,_ ] says Patti, while her sister sighs out a lazy, [ _Can we get outta here sometime? I got all the media we need and I'm missin' D-City 99._ ]

[ Hey. Maka. Let's actually talk later, yeah? ]

She nods from across the room, biting her lip to stifle a smile. [ _'Kay._ ]

[ _All of you are lucky none of these politicians have an ounce of Perception. Now the that whole_ _ **faculty**_ _is in here, get the hell out of my resonance or I will begin discussing the budget for the fourth quarter._ ]

Tsubaki soothingly cuts in with, [ _Okay, but I think I just scored a bunch of really, really good sake from the chairman, so…_ ]

[ _Yeah,_ ] Kilik says. [ _Ox just texted: free BBQ at the station tonight for the D99 finale. Harv's fryin' wings. Bring the sake._ ]

Half the resonance chimes in with excited cheering.

[ _Fine,_ ] says Kid, pulling his notecards out of his blazer. [ _I'll wrap this up, but will the power couple please shut up, the music you make together is driving me mad._ ]

* * *

"Exhale," she says. His breath hisses, ricocheting off the cushioned massage table. "It's weird to see your hair up."

Soul scoffs, which melts into a groan. "Would it be better in pigtails?"

She digs her elbow into his back. "I was thinking horns. Like Ford back in the day."

"Please no, not cool."

Maka laughs. "Sooo, I was thinking about moving," she says, and Soul remains silent, but his wavelength is attentive. "Maybe closer to the school? Exhale."

After another groan, he says, "I'm down. We can try to get the same schedules, too. Talked to Blair?"

"Not yet. I'll text her." She looks over her shoulder to ask, "Papa, can we borrow your car for moving our stuff?"

Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and equally loud Bermuda shorts, Spirit Albarn reclines in one of the infirmary beds with Angela, Thunder, Fire, and Shelley dogpiled around him. He holds Kid's tablet for all of them to watch more Kung Fu. Without looking away from the screen, he says, "Do I get a spare key?"

" _No_ ," she and Soul say.

"Death Scythe gets to shave his head."

"Aw come on, dude."

"El-em-ay-oh."

* * *

that's all, folks. hope you enjoyed. i'd love your thoughts.

special thanks to the somazine 2018 crew, and especially chaoticlivi for inspiring all of us with 'the music we made together.'

big thanks to victoriapyrrhi for what ended up becoming the theme of the whole story.

and thanks as always to my slew of betas, you support me more than i can express.


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